GUERILLA EDUCATORS IS DEDICATED TO REALTIME EDUCATIONAL BEST PRACTICES IN ACTION. WE ARE A GLOBAL LEADER IN THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE PROJECT BASED LEARNING ON THE FRONTLINES IN AND OUT OF CLASSROOMS. WE ALSO CONNECT EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES PLANNERS WITH THE TEACHERS/LEARNERS WHO USE THOSE SPACES.

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With one pronounced, impactful exception, 21st century teaching and learning best practices are largely the same even if the century numbers are inverted. Sound, effective educational best practices in the 21st century share certain strategic, timeless characteristics. To that end, we have identified ten experience based Hallmarks of 21st Century Teaching and Learning that can be used as touchstones in the educator's pedagogical approach to teaching and learning.

The overarching caveat, of course, is that technology in the 21st century has permeated most aspects of education and culture and has changed everything. How we, as educators, use technology with our students is now the key to unlocking those 21st century global skillsets so that our students can lead and compete in a world where geography has become, in many ways, superfluous.

The Hallmarks:

Project Based Learning

Student Ownership/Engagement

Collaborative Teaching/Cooperative Learning

Citizenship/Leadership/Personal Responsibility

Community Partnerships

Mastery of Curriculum/Development of Higher Order Thinking Skills

Technology/21st Century Skills

The Teachable Moment/Agility

Reporting Out/Celebration

Fun

The Hallmarks:

Hallmark 1: Project Based Learning - Project Based Learning is the primary gateway through which the Hallmarks are realized. There are consistent characteristics that make a Project viable. Some of these are that Projects should be:

Hands-On

Collaborative

Multi-Disciplinary

Student Centered

Real-Time

Real-World

Flexible

Just as any discussion about the design of 21st century teaching/learning spaces includes, by nature, flexibility of those spaces, so too the design of 21st century teaching and learning must also be flexible. With technology an integral aspect of our lives, more than ever our students have individual learning styles that must be taken into account. PBL provides a plethora of opportunities for students and teachers to be engaged in ways that are best suited to their optimum learning styles.

This short video demonstrates a real world boat building Project featuring middle grade students at a Philadelphia charter school that authentically models these characteristics:

Hallmark 2: OWNERSHIP/ENGAGEMENT - When students are interested and invested in the completion of a school-based project, they begin to own their educational processes. With ownership, all aspects of their school career, including mastery of curriculum become important to them. With ownership also comes:

Ownership starts with you, the teacher! Get invested in the processes of PBL. Initiate projects with your students that interest you, so you can authentically model ownership.

ENGAGEMENT - Ownership and engagement are essentially 2 sides of the same coin. When students take ownership and personal responsibility for the successful outcome of their Project, it follows that they are engaged and interested. Any good Service Learning project will present students with many opportunities to think critically, make hypotheses, and extend what they have learned. Engagement is the door to performing these important skills, which in turn, engenders academic and civic success.

This high school Project activity using the built environment is a great example of student engagement: https://youtu.be/Mu5vODUKTeg

Hallmark 3: COLLABORATIVE TEACHING/COOPERATIVE LEARNING - Teacher collaborations present powerful opportunities for educators to learn from each other, which can increase the strategies available to them in their pedagogical toolboxes. With technology, it is now just as possible to collaborate virtually with the teacher across the globe as it is across the hall.

Students working cooperatively in small groups to achieve project-based goals is a powerful strategy to achieve curricular and standards based objectives. Moreover, when students are focused on the goals of a project, they are more inclined to negotiate with their peers which clarifies their understandings and solidifies their learning. The cooperative nature of small groups working together for successful completion of the project also has an extremely positive effect on the classroom climate and behavior issues are significantly mitigated.

This Project with post graduate students demonstrates experientially collaboration and cooperation: https://youtu.be/mr04qE46fXg

Hallmark 4: CITIZENSHIP/LEADERSHIP/PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - Development of good citizenship skills as part of the fabric of teaching and learning is critical to the long term, real-life success of our students.

Civic skills give greater depth, context and meaning to student mastery of curriculum and standards. Integral to a Project is the inclusion of Community Partnerships. Professionals who freely give their time and expertise to benefit students are models of good citizenship.

LEADERSHIP - Project Based Learning requires administrative and teacher leadership while developing those qualities in our students. One of the key components of effective leadership is having the humility to know what you don't know and having the ability to listen and learn, from those who do. So, for teachers and administrators:

Leadership involves having the inner strength to make decisions and to take personal responsibility for the consequences of those decisions.

Leadership is enabling those whom you lead to be innovative problem solvers without feeling threatened by their success.

Leadership is being able to buffer and protect those you lead from distractions and impediments so they may carry out their responsibilities unimpeded by those distractions.

Leadership is the ability to turn mistakes into "teachable moments" rather than "blamable moments".

Leadership is knowing when to step back to give opportunities for those in your charge to take the lead, while understanding that ultimate responsibility rests with you.

Leaders understand that leadership is a way of life and therefore unbound by the time constraints of the school or business day/week.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - It is incumbent upon us as educators to instill in our students that, as much as the teachers have a responsibility to present information in interesting, informative, and innovative ways, students also have the personal responsibility to make sure that they have mastered the requisite information to satisfy the goals and objectives of the Project. Student engagement, ownership, and interest in the successful completion of the Project engenders personal responsibility. Ultimately, one of our most critical functions as educators is to inculcate this sense of personal responsibility in our students.

Hallmark 5: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS - Community Partners are the heart of Project Based and 21st century teaching and learning. Having real-world professionals and others in the community work with our students to help address real-world problems present powerful opportunities for students to get involved and engaged as citizens and leaders while achieving and retaining, curricular and standards-based proficiencies. Community Partners also model good citizenship/leadership and provide opportunities for taking class trips that are fun and demonstrate real-world learning skills.

This video demonstrates how Community Partnerships both in, and out of, classrooms can have a transformational effect on students: https://youtu.be/PPrfbiVZmxo

Hallmark 6: MASTERY OF CURRICULUM/HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS - The primary rationale to employ Project Based Learning is, in fact, as a tool for student achievement, both academically and socially. A project's success is ultimately determined by whether the project-based activities are connected to grade appropriate curriculum and state standards and more importantly, whether these connections enable students to achieve mastery across a range of academic disciplines. We have seen that when students work within the Project Based methodology they own their educational processes, are engaged in a project's activities, work cooperatively to achieve success, and see citizenship modeled by the Community Partners, then mastery of curriculum becomes more likely.

This video shows second graders making and testing hypotheses: https://youtu.be/b133AGFclCY

HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS - Universal access to the internet by our students has changed the equation of how they learn, whether we, as educators, are ready for this change or not. Unlike the traditional teaching and learning experience, with the Project Based methodology students are gaining knowledge experientially. Rather than feeding the students disconnected facts to be regurgitated on a test, Project Teachers coach the students to apply that knowledge to real world situations which engenders Higher Order Thinking Skills like evaluation, synthesis, and analysis. Many of the videos on the Guerilla Educators blog authentically demonstrate HOTS in Action.

Hallmark 7: TECHNOLOGY/21ST CENTURY SKILLS - Technology is the #2 pencil of the 21st century. As such, any good Service Learning project will be embedded with a wide array of real-world technology-based applications. We still, by and large, teach interminably about how to use tech applications with our students. Well, that ship has sailed given the fact that the younger we are, the greater our ability to use technology in an agile way. So now, more than ever we need an educational paradigm shift away from learning how to use technology and towards using it.

This high school Project activity using the built environment is a great example of students using technology: https://youtu.be/Mu5vODUKTeg

Hallmark 8: THE TEACHABLE MOMENT/Agility - Agility is one of the foundational tenets of 21st century education. Agile educators nimbly take advantage of those "off the curriculum grid" spontaneous learning opportunities when they occur. These teachable moments are powerful opportunities for effective, authentic teaching and learning to take place. Being able to identify and use real-time teachable moments is one of those transcendent qualities that good educators possess. Click here to see two examples of teachable moments in real-time.

Hallmark 9: REPORTING OUT/CELEBRATION - Students will report out to peers, school staff, and the larger community:

What they learned.

How they addressed the problems or issues.

Their final products. ...and

They will be celebrated for their important, authentic, real-time work.

Hallmark 1O: FUN - As a 4th grader concisely put it some years ago, "Teacher John, if it ain't fun, why would we do it?" School and Fun? While the terms are usually perceived to be in diametric opposition to each other, students having FUN within the framework of their school-based activities is an integral aspect of Effective Teaching and Learning and is one of the overarching links that facilitate academic and civic success.

This short video is a compilation from 2 elementary schools conducting on-site water monitoring and having FUN!:

To see powerful, authentic demonstrations of the Hallmarks in action, take a look at this "Seeds to Trees" horticulture project... <

and click on our Service Learning Video Compilation, as well:

Let us show you how to incorporate the Hallmarks into your teaching/learning program. Our Professional Development Workshops demonstrate in a practical, hands-on way how educators, using the Hallmarks as touchstones, can be more effective. Contact John Sole at: tcherjohn@aol.com for more info.

June 22, 2016

The Barack Obama Green Charter High School located in Plainfield, NJ, opened its doors in September, 2009. In that time, the school has been in 3 different locations including their present site, a converted office building in the Downtown area.

Today, the Student Design Team from Obama Green met with the owners of Treelawn, a 2+ acre estate in Plainfield that will be their new permanent home. The Student Design Team has worked closely with the SSP architectural group and others to qualitatively contribute their design ideas for the new teaching and learning spaces.

The students shared their ideas for the outdoor classrooms and the student commons areas with the owners, who have been married for 59 years and have lived at Treelawn since 1987. The legacy of good that will continue at Treelawn with the high school made a deep impression on both the students and the owners.

March 30, 2016

February 22, 2015

I truly hope this works, as advertised. I bought 2 of these eBikes, sight unseen. The price is fantastic. Now it's just a matter of whether it's a "real" thing. They have a $75,000 Indiegogo campaign through February and have been pledged more that $3,500,000 with 8 days to go.

November 12, 2014

In early November, 2006, the Guerilla Educators blog went live. This year, we celebrate our 8th year (and counting!). Here one of our first posts about a Project at a client school that included a visit between students from a 4th grade at Blankenburg Elementary School and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Wangari Maathai...

August 24, 2014

"Dream. Design. Build.", a Project assisted by Guerrilla Educators with 10th graders from 1st Philadelphia Charter High School demonstrates the critical intersections between Project Based Learning, Community Partnerships, and STEM. "Dream" was developed as a multi-disciplinary, student-centered way to connect the actual design and construction of their new high school to teachers, students, and curriculum. Over the first month of this school year, the Project took place in Geometry, Chemistry, and Social Studies classes and helped students achieve academic and civic proficiencies in each of those subject areas. Starting with the student visit to the actual construction site, the videos experientially document the actual processes that took place with "Dream" in, and out of, the classrooms. This is the very best of best practices in action. Take a look...

August 19, 2014

Under the auspices of the International Education Services Corporation (IESC), high schoolstudents from China were hosted by students from the Barack Obama Green Charter High School for what Obama Green called International STEM Day. The activity shown in the video builds off of the "Imagine"design/build Project where the US students spent a semester renovating an abandoned industrial building in Downtown Plainfield, NJ as the next iteration of Obama Green. The collaboration with the Chinese students is projected to become part of a semester long international collaboration between the US and their Chinese peers. We're privileged that Guerilla Educators played a part in bringing this together. Take a look...

April 29, 2014

The "Imagine" design Project continues at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School, in Plainfoeld, New Jersey. In this video, the students are thinking critically, hypothesizing, and problem solving around getting the scale determined so all of their interior renovation design will properly fit within the site boundaries. Take a look...

See this Project activity within the context of "Imagine" that has been going on since January, 2014, here...

April 07, 2014

The "Imagine" Design Project continues with students from the Barack Obama Green Charter High School making a class visit to the SSP Architectural Group's offices. The students were given a tour of the work areas and were able to interact with the educational facilities planners there. After the tour, they presented their work thus far to the architects on their re-design ideas for the next iteration of the Obama Green physical teaching and learning spaces. Take a look...

Special thanks to Jeanne and Jay Perantoni and all the folks at SSP Architectural Group for allowing us to invade their spaces and learn by their example. ...and for the pizza!

Click here to view other video examples of the "Imagine" design process.

March 19, 2014

The "Imagine" Project documents the design processes between students at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School located in Plainfield New Jersey and their expert Community Partners, both real-time and virtual. Students participating in the "Imagine" Project are re-designing an actual unused industrial space in Plainfield that very well may become the actual physical facility of the school in 2015 and beyond. "Imagine" is also a powerful catalyst for students to achieve academic and civic proficiencies. Take a look...

Best Practices; "Imagine" Design Project Student Voices

"Imagine" Design Project; Teacher Reflections

A remarkable session took place between students at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School, in Plainfield, NJ and David Schrader, from the offices of SchraderGroup Architecture, located in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia. David livestreamed from Philly to Plainfield to work with the students there about programming of physical school spaces, zoning, and design. This virtual session with the Obama Green students is the second in a series of web-based "live" sessions between Community Partners like SchraderGroup and the students. With the critical support of Community Partners, students at Obama Green are imagining their school, currently located in a storefront at Downtown Plainfield, as they would like it to be. Take a look...

This video is a mash up of 2 design sessions that took place on February 26 and 27, 2014 under the guidance of architect Jay Perantoni at The Barack Obama Green Charter High School, in Plainfield, New Jersey. The video demonstrates authentic student involvement at the very beginning of an actual design process that is engaging, curriculum based, and fun and that addresses real world, community related issues that are important to them. This is Service Learning at a very high degree of effectiveness. Take a look...

Students at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School continue their "Imagine" design Project. They are re-imagining their school spaces as they would like them to be. In this video, they have their first SketchUp session with Marcus and Bianca from SSP Architects. "Imagine" is part of the actual design renovation process of an abandoned urban structure which is projected to become the new charter high school. Take a look...

This following is a 5 minute audio from Ewan McIntosh, one of the world's most creative thinkers about education and educational facilities design, to the students at Obama Green High School about their design processes. Thanks, Ewan!

The "Imagine" Design Project continues with students from the Barack Obama Green Charter High School making a class visit to the SSP Architectural Group's offices. The students were given a tour of the work areas and were able to interact with the educational facilities planners there. After the tour, they presented their work thus far to the architects on their re-design ideas for the next iteration of the Obama Green physical teaching and learning spaces. Take a look...

Special thanks to Jeanne and Jay Perantoni and all the folks at SSP Architectural Group for allowing us to invade their spaces and learn by their example. ...and for the pizza!

The "Imagine" design Project continues at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School, in Plainfield, New Jersey. In this video, the students are thinking critically, hypothesizing, and problem solving around getting the scale determined so all of their interior renovation design will properly fit within the site boundaries.

Click here to view other video examples of the "Imagine" design process.

March 07, 2014

Students at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School continue their "Imagine" design Project. They are re-imagining their school spaces as they would like them to be. In this video, they have their first SketchUp session with Marcus and Bianca from SSP Architects. "Imagine" is part of the actual design renovation process of an abandoned urban structure which is projected to become the new charter high school. Take a look...

February 28, 2014

This video is a mash up of 2 design sessions that took place on February 26 and 27, 2014 under the guidance of architect Jay Perantoni at The Barack Obama Green Charter High School, in Plainfield, New Jersey. The video demonstrates authentic student involvement at the very beginning of an actual design process that is engaging, curriculum based, and fun and that addresses real world, community related issues that are important to them. This is Service Learning at a very high degree of effectiveness. Take a look...

December 24, 2013

Students at East Norriton Middle School design/built models of sustainable gingerbread houses. This kickoff event features a presentation to the 6th grade science class by the Architect, David Mazzocco. Architect Dave gives an overview of sustainability, its rationale, the 5 LEED categories, and then presents real-time examples of sustainability in the built and natural environments. Next up, the students will brainstorm design ideas and materials prior to the actual construction of the models, here. This is Best Practices at its best. Take a look...

Part 2:

Part 2... 6th Grade Design Groups; "Green" Gingerbread Houses

After Architect Dave's presentation, (click here) about the elements of susatainability and LEED, the students broke out into small working groups to begin brainstorming their gingerbread house designs. This video documents their first design session.

Part 3...

Design Session #3; Sustainable Design in 6th Grade

In this video, the 6th graders at East Norriton Middle School have begun constructing their sustainable, edible gingerbread houses. Their design process has included a presentation from a sustainable architect, brainstorming about materials and design, marking up images of their model concepts, and online research about sustainability and LEED. They plan to present and defend their finished models in a couple of days to their peers, their teachers, architects, and the press. Take a look...

ENMS Final Model Presentations; LEED "Certified" Gingerbread Houses

In Part 4 of the Sustainable Gingerbread House Project, Mr. Taylor's 6th grade students presented/defended their finished gingerbread house models. Each design included the LEED elements of Site, Energy, Materials, Water, and Indoor Air Quality. After their presentations, the student designs were evaluated according to a judging rubric that was collaboratively made up by the participating teachers and that included the LEED frameworks.

December 18, 2013

In this video, the 6th graders at East Norriton Middle School have begun constructing their sustainable, edible gingerbread houses. Their design process has included a presentation from a sustainable architect, brainstorming about materials and design, marking up images of their model concepts, and online research about sustainability and LEED. They plan to present and defend their finished models in a couple of days to their peers, their teachers, architects, and the press. Take a look...

December 15, 2013

After Architect Dave's presentation, (click here) about the elements of susatainability and LEED, the students broke out into small working groups to begin brainstorming their gingerbread house designs. This video documents their first design session.

December 08, 2013

In this video, 6th and 7th grade students from a public charter school in Philadelphia, working with world-class Community Partner, the Wooden Boat Factory designed and built 4 boats. They began with 4 flat squares of boat wood and working in small groups, spent 1/2 day a week building their boats. Along the way, these students covered many of their curricular requirements in math, reading, social studies, technology, and science. This is a powerful demonstration of hands on learning at its finest. Take a look...

Guerilla Educators: Over the years, more then a thousand students have built boats under your guidance at the Wooden Boat Factory. How did you develop such a unique program that has had such a powerful influence on primarily inner city students?

Geoff McKonly: Several experiences in my life led me to question educational perspectives and approaches. As a student in high school I was largely bored. The world of the classroom seemed removed from the real world. During this time I fooled around with researching and doing whatever I had an interest in. For instance I got very into bicycle racing and opened a repair shop with a friend of mine because I was looking for a platform to learn more about something I was interested in. I had no idea at that point what I was doing and that a lot of what I was teaching myself in pursuing my interest was the same things I was barely passing or flunking in school. During this time I was learning physics, math, business practices, supply and demand, communication skills, work ethic, and traveling all over the place racing bicycles. I was at one point waking up at 5am to train and working in the shop after school. During this time one of my teachers told me that a lot of my teachers thought I was strung out on drugs because I didn’t seem to care one bit about school work. I had created a world that allowed me to do all kinds of cool stuff and when I found out that my teachers thought I had a problem yet never had bothered to find out what I was doing it really made me stop and think. I lost a lot of respect for many of my high school teachers at this point. One of the subjects I flunked was geometry in 10th grade. I repeated it in 11th grade and spent my time during my second round in geometry class reading Catcher and the Rye. This had a profound effect on my perspective on authority and gave me courage to follow my own path.Besides bicycle racing I was spending four days a week teaching skiing in the winter, the summers sailing with my father, cousin and on my own and a time on wood working projects. My parents were very upset with me about my school work but they gave me tremendous freedom and support to pursue my interests in the other areas. These activities comprised my formative education. Bicycle racing taught me determination, teaching skiing empathy and communication, wood working problem solving and sailing persistence and self-reliance.When I went onto college and worked various jobs this varied background of recreational pursuits was relevant to working towards success. I found myself relating things to one or another experience in my time out of school. The practical nature of my background experiences served as a distant link to a solution I didn’t fully understand the nature of the related problem. The key to my interest in the problem was the connection between my disinterest in my formal education and my innate understanding that I was not stupid. I was lucky in the tremendous amount of confidence I had in knowing this. I had a sense of what it was that was useful to me in navigating life and that it had come through doing, trial and error, experimentation and hard work. It came from the opportunity that my parents had provided me to create and make mistakes. Not from my time in school within a world disconnected to reality. All of our programs at Philadelphia Wooden Boat Factory focus on opportunities that are real and challenging. My experiences have been what has driven me to begin Philadelphia Wooden Boat Factory and which continues to drive our programming. For example, our most popular class consists of boys and girls building 15’ wooden canoes. The canoes are a basic boat building project but involve skills that are a challenge to the beginner. We are teaching basic tool use, hand eye coordination, individual responsibility and critical thinking. Regardless of age, the project is a difficult project for a beginner to undertake. Teachers often get frustrated with their students as they watch them struggle, until they try it themselves and see that the work is hard. The end project is a usable boat that is donated to camps reinforcing the fact that the quality needs to be sufficient to have hundreds of other kids use the end product.

November 06, 2013

Mrs. Sirchie's 6th grade students researched, developed, wrote, and presented their bullying skits for her Health Class at East Norriton Middle School. "Rothfeld's Reporters" from 7th grade shot the footage. A tip of the hat to Guerilla Educators for editing. This Service Learning Project is collaborative, cross curricular, uses technology as a 21st century tool, and is fun. Take a look...

October 03, 2013

This morning, Brendan Wills, the Education Reporter for the Montgomery County (PA) Times Herald paid a visit to Mrs. Margie Rothfeld's 7th grade students at East Norriton Middle School. Brandon helped Mrs. Rothfeld to teach interviewing techniques to her students. This video documents some of the great things that took place there today. Take a look...

June 10, 2013

For much of the 2012-'13 school year, 7th grade students from the Chinese International School in Hong Kong and their US counterparts at East Norriton Middle School (ENMS), in suburban Philadelphia have been in regular communication with each other. What began as a simple penpal arrangement between the students ("My name is..., I go to..., I like to eat,,,, etc) has become so much more. Educators at the schools from both Hong Kong and East Norriton have collaborated electronically throughout the Project to include curricular objectives, local customs and holidays, and the increasing use of technology applications. In April, students from ENMS filmed and edited their first video for their Hong Kong "TechPals", "A Day in the Life" at their school, here:

Their Hong Kong friends just sent a return video, their first, back to the ENMS students, here:
This Project has been a wonderful experience for both the students, teachers, and the entire school families at both schools. The hope is that it will continue into the 2013-'14 school year.
Student feedback about the project, here...

May 16, 2013

While visiting the Marin School of Environmental Leadership at Terra Linda Hogh School, I noticed that many of the classroom doors had been turned into student developed works of art. Here is a small sample of the doors, ...and one BIG HONKIN' WALL!

May 04, 2013

Throughout much of the 2012-'13 school year, students 7th grade students at East Norriton Middle School in East Norriton, PA, have been communicating with their peers at International Schools in Hong Kong and the French Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe. What began as simple introductory emails between the students has increased in scope across a variety of platforms. This video, below, is the latest effort by the ENMS sudents. They wanted to introduce their "TechPals" in Hong Kong to their school so they filmed and edited (with a little help from their teachers, Margie Rothfeld and Donna Sole) "a day in the life" at ENMS. The 7th graders at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong are spending 2 weeks on mainland China (now that's some class trip!) and plan on their return to respond with their own video to the ENMS students. As relevant as the Project is for the students, it is, in my view, even more significant that these teachers are beginning to collaborate with each other from across the globe. Now THAT is interesting!

April 26, 2013

I
have an alternative to those in the movement afoot to, um, what's the
word... oh yes! extort money from the professional Philly sports teams
to pay for School District of Philadelphia sports programs. It is setting up a false dichotomy that if the mean corporate heads of the
Phillies, Eagles, 76ers, and Flyers don't succumb to this shakedown the
implication is that they somehow don't support the innocent District
children who want to play sports. The alternative to this notion that the less fortunate are somehow entitled
to other people's honestly earned money would be to set up a non-profit
fund and those who wanted to do so could, instead of spending their own
money to buy tickets, tees, memorabilia, etc would donate the cost of
the tickets, etc into the Student Sports Fund. Get your own skin in the
game! Since the Phillies stink this year, I might even donate the cost
of a couple of tickets to such a fund. If they start to compete though,
fugeddaboutit.

February 03, 2013

First, the caveat.
Please take this post as coming from a 62 year old conservative leaning
white Italian guy from South Philadelphia.
That said, whenever I think about the twin homicide tragedies of Lesane Parish Crooks, aka Tupac Shakur and Christopher George Latore Wallace, aka as Biggie Smalls, I get choked up. Both of these men were murdered in their
early 20’s within 6 months of each other in 1996 – ’97 and neither of their
assailants has ever been apprehended.
Even within such a short creative time, Tupac and Biggie have had an outsized
influence that has transcended far beyond the Rap/Hip Hop genre. Suffice it to say that Biggie Smalls and
Tupac Shakur were not two of, but the two
most intelligent, insightful, and yes, entertaining commentators of the inner
city Black and, by extension, American experience of the late 20th
century. Not unlike Juvenal from the
Roman Era, Beowulf, Samuel Johnson from the Enlightenment period, Poor
Richard’s Almanac, de Tocqueville, …you get the idea, Tupac and Biggie chronicled
the life and times in mostly poor Black America with such acute insight that,
had they lived, it makes one wonder how those chronicles might have evolved. I first, by chance, heard “Juicy” a song on
Notorious B.I.G’s album “Ready to Die” in 1994 while driving my daughter to
middle school as she was flipping through her favorite radio channels. I actually had to pull over for a minute to
compose myself while listening to that song!
As Biggie says in “Juicy”, …”if you don’t know, now you know, N****r,
and I knew then that I needed to know more about this guy. Something similar happened when I heard Tupac
Shakur’s, “Letter to the President” from his album, “Still I Rise”. In Tupac’s “Letter”, he details with such a
ferocious clarity the problems in his “neighborhood”, problems that are imposed
from the larger society and far more importantly, from individuals’ personal
responsibility, and lack of it, for the distressed conditions in the community. Am I too effusive in my descriptions of these
guys? I’d love to know what others
think.

December 07, 2012

This video highlights the newly designed P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, located in Gainesville, Florida. Fielding Nair International (FNI) was the Master Planner and Design Architect for this Project and their educational vision is apparent throughout the physical facility. Take a look:

September 10, 2012

Sr Peye, the "shop" teacher at Isidro Sanchez High School in Luquillo, Puerto Rico works with his students to conduct amazing Projects. In the last 5 years, Peye's students have won NASA's Moon Buggy competition held every year in Huntsville, Alabama where students from around he world compete in various categories. His students are busy re-designing their Moon Buggy in preparation for the competition set for April. Buena Suerte!

August 06, 2012

Developing the Project Concept:• What type of Project do you want to conduct with your students and why?• Will you be collaborating with other teachers in, or out of your school?• What content areas do you want to craft this project around?• Take a real-world topic related to the selected content areas.• Create a Driving Question that will drive investigation into the topic.

Develop a Driving Question that:• Is aimed at solving a problem• Will lead to deep inquiry• Will invite future learning• Is meaningful to the student, the school, the community, and/or the world• Is an issue that students believe in or have a passion for• By answering, they are having a positive impact on something or someone

Understandings/Outcomes: • What specifically do you want students to understand?• What facts and basic concepts should students know and be able to recall?• What will students know and what will they be able to do?• What curriculum, standards, and performance-based objectives will be addressed?• Will the learning be meaningful and applicable in their lives? • Project activities should be connected to curricular objectives.• Build planning time in to address curriculum connections.

Skills: Students will be able to independently use their learning to:• Demonstrate citizenship and leadership• Work through real-world problems by trial and error• Collaborate and problem solve with others• Utilize technology to actualize and express ideas• Guide future independent directed learning across disciplines using the PBL process

Project Design/Features:• What teachers/colleagues should be involved in the collaborative brainstorming process?• Is the project part of a curricular unit?• Do students have choice of topic within a curriculum?• Will the teacher be guiding students in the framing of a driving question? Will students create their own driving question? • Is the project interdisciplinary and thematic?• Will you be collaborating with other teachers in, or out of your school?• Will students work independently or in groups or a combination?• Will the project involve class trips and or individual student experiences outside of the school day?• Does the project have community partners? • Will the project have a service-learning component?

Community Partnerships/Resources:• Which Community Partners can help you with your project?• In what ways will Community Partnerships model good citizenship/leadership?• What resources do you need to see the project through to completion?• Will project related class trips be taken?

Project Activities:• Planned to achieve overall project objectives.• Connected to grade appropriate curricular objectives in at least 2 subject areas.• Engage students to take ownership of their educational processes• Are the activities FUN?

Benchmarks:• Set clear time referenced deadlines for each task and/or product.• Should be scaffolded to build on previously achieved objectives towards success of the project.• Help build the guidelines in which the project can take place

Reflection/Journals:• Student journals will offer students the opportunity to continuously reflect and assess their progress toward completion of the project.• Teachers can use student journals as valuable assessment tools.• Offer students the opportunity to learn from the strategies that did and, perhaps more importantly, did not work to achieve project objectives.

Assessment:• Will student be assessed throughout the project cycle or on a final project? Formative/Summative• An effective assessment program uses multiple strategies to demonstrate growth and performance, and should be closely correlated to your stated goals. • How are rubrics used as an effective assessment and evaluation tool?

Reporting Out: • Students will report out to peers, school staff, and the larger community:• How they addressed their driving question.• What they learned. • Their final project products.

Celebration:How students will be celebrated and recognized for their important work at a Reporting Out Celebration!

May 16, 2012

Friend and colleague, Emily Curley, is the Sustainability Coordinator at American University. American U has made an upfront commitment to significantly lessen their carbon footprint on campus and to be a positive example for the neighboring DC community and beyond. Ms Curley has been tasked with "green up" 25 existing campus buildings so they may achieve a LEED designation. The hope here at Guerilla Educators is that neighborhood youth can participate in that process. Some of the ways that can be accomplished, according to Emily, are:

Here are some ideas:

We did a big delamping project in the library this semester and I suspect our electrician might be game to remove more lamps from overlit areas. We already had a student do a light-level study in the res halls, but Tech Prep kids could potentially...

take light level readings in classroom buildings (hands on!) and then suggest how many lamps to remove (critical thinking!), and...

calculate savings for us (math!). The data gathering might only take a day and they could...

make a PowerPoint (technology!) or something and present (language arts!) to our Facilities staff.

A sustainability tour of campus to see our green roofs, solar panels (probably can't take kids to the actual roof but there are some viewing areas), community garden, etc. They spend the next few lessons...

researching and proposing technologies that would be good for the Tech Prep building and why.

One LEED credit is measuring the area of native/adaptive species. If we could pre-identify some areas with those plantings, students could help measure and record the areas using either just tape measure or fancy surveying wheel and research why native species are important.

Work a day in the community garden here on campus then...

send students to Tech Prep to help build a small garden there (as I remember they have a good amount of space).

Learn about local, organic food and gardening.

Help us do a waste audit. This is where you literally sort through the trash to understand the make up of the waste stream thrown away over the course of 24 hours in one building. Our students tend to like this and it's eye opening to see what could have been recycled or composted but instead ends up in the trash. Based on the data...

students could make charts and graphs about the % recycled vs. landfilled and the % that could have been recycled or composted. Easy to set up and would take a day to do.

Last summer, a group of high school students shot a video of the sustainability efforts at American U. Take a look...

March 22, 2012

I was alerted to this video by a gentleman who did a documentary about Little Cayman for a college course in 1970. He spent 3 weeks on the North Coast at Burgess Meredith's cottage up there. At that time, there were 17 permanent residents at what he called "South Hole". Since there were no roads from the North Coast at that time, it was easier to get to Cayman Brac than to get over to South Hole. Take a look...

March 02, 2012

In this video, Educational Facilities Planner Prakash Nair, President and Co-Founder of Fielding Nair International gives a walking tour of the teahing and learning spaces at Rafael Cordero Elementary school, located in Catano, just outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Cordero Elemental is the first re-designed school completed as part of the island-wide Schools for the 21st Century initiative, spearheaded by FNI.Cordero Elemental is the first re-designed school completed as part of the island-wide Schools for the 21st Century initiative, spearheaded by FNI. Take a look...

Click on the link to see a video at Isidro Sanchez High School, another FNI designed 21st century school, located in beautiful Luquillo.

February 26, 2012

As part of Fielding Nair International's 21st Century Schools initiative in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, FNI educators Chris Hazleton and John Sole were privileged to visit the Isidro Sanchez High School in the beautiful city of Luquillo. The high school has undergone major renovations designed to enhance teaching and learning. With Mr. Angel Gonzalez, Deputy Director of the Public Private Partnership Bank, we were hosted by Sanchez Principal, Ms MaryAnne Maldonado. At the time of this post, the school is about 2 weeks from completed construction of all re-design work. Take a look...

Click on the link to see a video of Rafael Cordero Elemental, another FNI designed 21st century school, in Catano, just outside of San Juan.

February 22, 2012

On Tuesday, February 20, 2012, Mr. George Clinton was the guest of honor at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School, located in Plainfield, New Jersey. Mr. Clinton was being recognized for his contributions to the school and to being, ahem, instrumental in the establishment of a world class music program there. The evening also celebrated the release of the single, "RU Free?", an original song featuring Mr. Clinton, Dr. Cornel West, Mayor Corey Booker, and students from Obama Green. "RU Free?" is available on iTunes. Proceeds go to the school.

January 23, 2012

As part of a strategic plan to realign the grade structure within the District, Schradergroup worked with York Suburban School District to complete renovations and additions totaling 61,327 SF for Valley View Elementary School and to convert the facility from a K-1 to a K-2 school. The project serves as an important lesson in the role of design as a valuable tool for successful strategic planning and adaptive re-use that maximizes educational resources.

At Valley View, the design of the addition maintains the character of the existing building and features the reuse of the original cupola for the school, removed years ago. The addition and renovations focus on creating parity in both the quantity and types of rooms in relation to Valley View's sister school, Yorkshire Elementary, which services the same population capacity.

What had once been a series of disjointed additions beginning in the 1940s is replaced with a design seeking coherence in the sum of its parts. The new entry hall provides a new physical and psychological 'center' for the building, marrying the old and new portions of the facility and their functions. The entry hall was also conceived as a gallery space providing articulated and well-lit surfaces for showcasing student activities.

The renovations maintain and expand an educational campus firmly rooted in a thriving residential neighborhood context. As part of the comprehensive campus approach to site design, a new bus loop design separates school bus, automobile, and pedestrian traffic, as well as removing bus idling from the busy township roads surrounding the facility. Other practical achievements include eliminating barriers to accessibility throughout the building and the campus. New and renovated existing HVAC systems augment the efficiency of a campus-wide central energy plant strategy for both heating and cooling.

For more information about Valley View Elementary School and other similar projects, please visit www.sgarc.com.

These videos detail the SchraderGroup charrette process for the York Suburban School District:

Guerilla Educators was privileged to have played a role in this remarkable project.

January 21, 2012

The Red Tails.This recollection is inspired by a former student of mine at Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School who recently saw the movie, "Red Tails". In 1996, my 4th grade students conducted a year long intergenerational Project with participants from the Interac Senior Center located in Roxborough/Manayunk in Philadelphia. Among other historic gems we discovered with the participants, we learned that lifelong Manayunk resident, Mr. Nathaniel Stewart, was an original Tuskeegee Airman. Mr. Stewart was 73 years old at the time and described himself as "a 95 pound weakling" when he was in high school who just so happened to have earned his pilot's wings from the US Air Force at Tuskeegee, Alabama and flew missions against the Germans during World War II. Inspired by my former student's enthusiasm for the movie, I looked through my archives and found a couple of the Oral History books we put together from that time. The illustration is the front cover of one of those precious books written by my former students and depicts Mr. Stewart as a VERY LARGE presence among my students. Thanks, Erica, for reminding me how privileged I was and how much I learned from my students.

January 09, 2012

This "quick and dirty" video captures in microcosm how a unifying theme for Project Based Learning can be effected systemically. In this case, we captured a small slice of a post-industrial small midwest city. Using the river that runs through it and where much of the history of the place has played out, the video underscores how the city can be used in 5 dimensions (including realtime and cyberspace) as a unifying theme to achieve proficiencies across a variety of curricular and civic objectives. Take a look...

December 24, 2011

In 1998, Donna and I went looking for some land on our dream island of Little Cayman. After reviewing virtually every piece of real estate available on the Little Island we settled on a lovely beachfront property on the remote, pristine North Coast between, Mr. Keith's Cay Michigan and the late Burgess Meredith's (yes, THAT Burgess Meredith) getaway cottage. Property 89a 77 spans about 108 feet along the coast and goes back a few hundred yards up on the bluff. From the beach one can walk out to Bloody Bay Wall, one of the world's top 5 dive sites. The views of the Caribbean are remarkable and there is always a nice breeze from the Tradewinds on that 15 foot rise. Our idea was that we would build our dream house up on that bluff and live happily ever after. In the intervening years since our taking possession of the property, we have also bought Condo del Sole a beautiful 2 br 2 1/2 bath oceanfront accommodation on the western tip of Little Cayman. Now, reality has reared its head and we are reluctantly putting our beautiful land up for sale. After all, how many pieces of real estate can a kid from South Philly own on a remote tropical island as lovely as Little Cayman? Is it your turn to own property on Little Cayman, the Gem of the Caribbean? If interested, contact us here at Guerilla Educators or Betty Bua at Tranquil Realty on Little Cayman for more details.

November 13, 2011

On November, 11-12, a select group of educational facilities planners from CEFPI had the opportunity to visit and participate in a NetZero Symposium at the Lady Bird Johnson Middle School, located in Irving, Texas. In this video, tech expert Glenn Meeks and I were given a tour of the school by Alejandro, a student there. The school is virtually paperless and produces more energy than it uses which is then sold back to the local utility company. Under the awesome direction of Principal Angie Gaylord, every aspect of the facility is used as a Project Based teaching and learning tool. Take a look... Special thanks for Scott Layne, Assitant Superintendent for the Irving School District and all of the wonderful students and staff who made this a very special event.

October 31, 2011

Students in 2nd grade from an inner city school in South Philadelphia planted acorns from native oak trees at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. They were part of an initiative to reestablish native deciduous hardwoods in the Schuylkill River Valley. When the acorns germinated, half of those oak saplings went back to their public school in South Philly. Seeds to Trees was a powerful catalyst to help these students achieve curricular proficiencies across a variety of disciplines, demonstrated the 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning, and modeled the best citizenship and leadership skills. Take a look...

October 07, 2011

In this video, students from the Education Research Center at the Rose Tree Media School District have been tasked with the real-world project of designing their art space. The school is located in a mall and the ownership there has given the empty space adjacent to the school to be converted to the school's Art Center. The Project will continue through the Spring of 2012 and all design activities will be connected across a variety of curricular objectives. This is Inquiry Based Teaching and Learning at its finest. Take a look,...

September 30, 2011

In 2002, Education Ministers from the countries of Serbia, Russia, Kosovo, and Ukraine came to Philadelphia to learn about effective Project Based Service Learning. They were here specifically to see the Alliance to Save Energy's, Green Schools program in action. Green Schools is an international, student centered program where students devise and implement energy conservation strategies in their school. As the Co-Director of the Green Schools, Philly programs, we had a kindergarten project in a Philadelphia public school. Among other aspects of the project, the students were part of the "Energy Patrol". These European educators saw hands on teaching and learning at its finest and went back to their respective countries with a deep understanding of Best Practices in action. Take a look...

September 20, 2011

Just found this video in the Guerilla Educators archives. Chris Lehman was the keynote speaker at the CEFPI Northeast Region Conference in the Spring of 2010. I shot Chris' talk in its entirety with an iPod about the size of a stick of gum, hence the narrow format. Amazing! As usual, Chris hit it out of the park like a Ryan Howard home run. Take a look...

July 27, 2011

This video captures an activity conducted with my students as part of a bridge building project conducted in cooperation with the American Institute of Architecture's, Architecture in Education program. It was also my first video. My students were to measure the height of the Henry Avenue Bridge using a plumb bob. Take a look...

This is a very powerful project that incorporates historical aspects of the American Revolution, geometry, public speaking, working cooperatively, ratio and proportion and a whole menu of grade appropriate curricular objectives and state mandated standards. It also demonstrates many of the 10 Hallmarks of 21st Century Teachng and Learning.

July 02, 2011

This video documents the initial stages of the educational planning process to re-design physical spaces that were built for purposes other than teaching and learning. Realtor Brian Wilson, took school architect, David Schrader, Donna Sole, and me to inspect just such a structure that has not been used for its intended purpose in over 10 years. Both the physical facility and the location make the site a very good fit with the Elementary School for Sustainable Design. Take a look at the "before" phase of the design process.

June 27, 2011

Guerilla Educators has added a new client. We recently completed 2 day Professional Development for the hard working educators at the Rose Tree Media School District that focused on how to successfully implement and complete curriculum and real-world based Projects with students. The workshop was given through the prism of our 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning. We'll return to ongoing work with the teachers throughout the 2011-2012 school year to assist with implementation and successful completion of the proposed Projects developed in the planning phase of the training. Welcome to our family of clients, Rose Tree Media, that includes: